Living Through a Pandemic: Surviving the Virus

It saved me, but my life is not the same.

When you lose smell, you are not only losing the world around you but also losing access to the internal landscape of your own past.

Nobody tells you about the dread. From the moment my doctor phoned me with the test results, to the moment I am writing this column, I have been scared out of my mind.

A one-time skeptic on dismissing, denying, contracting and spreading the coronavirus.

Thousands of people like me are suffering ill health months after contracting the virus. We need more help.

Some people write Pale Horse, Pale Rider after living through a pandemic, other people don’t. Still, I had promised to dash off a breezy diary of the lockdown, in that period after immediate recovery when I was certain I was 100 percent back to normal.

The most unforgettable first-person essays and on-the-ground reports that told the story of coronavirus in 2020.